Oiling up the Coast

People on British Columbia’s north coast have come to rely on a couple of assumptions.

One, oil tankers are forbidden to sail close to their jagged shore. Too risky.

Two, Albertans and their oil schemes are a safe, comfortable distance away.

Wrong on both counts, it seems, because Prime Minister Stephen Harper has shrugged off a 35-year practice to ban oil tankers plying B.C.’s inside passage. His stance is sure to raise a ruckus and cost him support in B.C.

Harper apparently figures the risk to the environment and his political standing is worth it given the stakes. The stakes being the melding of Alberta and B.C. into one seamless infrastructure designed to extract, move and profit from petroleum-based energy.

More about that vision in a minute, but first a brief history of the moratorium the PM says never really existed. read more